Hello, my name is SNES Man. First of all, I'd like to apologize for delaying this video
so long. I had college and other concerns that I don't want to whine to you about but
the point is now I'm back. Today's game is one that you guys requested. It's the old
RPG, Secret of Evermore. Let's take a look.
Secret of Evermore is an RPG from 1995. It was made by Square Soft, the company that
brought us Final Fantasy and Secret of Mana. It's kind of like Mana's little brother since
it's a really similar RPG. The two games have a lot of similarities but there is one major
difference: Secret of Evermore was developed by a North American team. That means that
the storyline, dialogue, and the general tone of the game are way different from the Japanese
Squaresoft games. So, let's take a further look at this underrated RPG and get down to
gaming.
The story in Evermore is pretty interesting. Here goes. Back in 1965, a mad scientist cooks
up this weird time-warp machine. Then, 30 years later in the cutting edge, ultra hip
1995, we see our hero. The main character is kind of like me; he's a pathetic nerd who's
obsessed with the past. He makes constant references to sci-fi movies from the 50's
and I've got to say that's kind of funny. It's nice to see that the American team behind
this Square Soft game knows how to lighten up and have a good time. That is something
we didn't see much of in Secret of Mana.
So, the hero accidentally fires up the time machine and gets sent into a weird futuristic
place. Your first fight is against a couple of robots but then you get sent into a new
world: a prehistoric age. Once you're there, you realize that your trusty dog got transformed
into a steroid pumped monster! From here on, your task is to navigate this strange world
and solve the mystery of getting back to your own time period. Pretty straight-forward,
simplistic plot but I like it. It's laid back and lets you focus on the adventure, not plot
details.
Now for some action. Secret of Evermore is an action RPG. Think Zelda but with more emphasis
on strategy and magic. There aren't any random encounters, just monsters in plain view. This
game has the exact same battle engine as Secret of Mana: every time you attack, you have to
wait for your attack to recharge before it can do full damage again. You have to watch
a percentage meter at the bottom of the screen to keep track of this. Okay, I know it sounds
tedious but the battle engine is actually really unique. Instead of just hacking away
at your enemies, you have to worry about strategy and timing.
Each enemy has a different way of fighting that you have to adjust to. If the monster
is slow and awkward like the man-eating plants, you can run away from them whenever you need
to recharge your attack. But if you're fighting something fast like the prehistoric raptors,
then you won't always have time to charge. You just have to keep swiping and fending
them off, otherwise you'll get mauled and cut up beyond recognition. Because they're
so unpredictable, the enemies are a challenge to fight but it's a good challenge. Sometimes
you'll have to train and level crunch for a while to overcome them -- but that's just
part of the old RPG spirit of the 90's. No mercy!
The controls are great. Your character's movements are quick and crisp and you can even dash
by holding "A". The "B" button swings your weapon and the "Y" button pulls up your menu.
Evermore uses the Ring Menu System that Secret of Mana invented. This is a handy way of controlling
things. Just press "Y" and a bunch of options come up including your magic, your items,
and all kinds of adjustments.
You can also control your trusty dog. Is it just me or does this mutt make the hero look
like a pansy? He's got high defense, more HP, and a vicious leaping attack that desecrates
all the monsters around you. And the hero . . . he starts off with a bone. Yup, that's
what you have to fight raptors and man-eating plants with. Good luck. The dog is not only
good in combat but he can help you find hidden items and secret magic ingredients with his
sniffing powers. If you ever want to switch between the human hero and the dog, you can
do it by pressing select. Sadly, if the human dies, you lose and go to the game over screen.
That means dog can't go on any solo missions and save the day by himself. Lame.
These are the only two playable characters in Secret of Evermore. Is that a bad thing?
I don't think so. It lets you focus on training these two guys and seeing them through to
the end. Sometimes, in bigger, wide-scoped RPGs for the Super Nintendo like Final Fantasy
6, you can actually get overwhelmed by the amount of characters but that's not the case
here.
Secret of Evermore is a lot more laid back than most RPGs of the time. The dialogue is
clever and sounds like a competent English speaker wrote the lines. There are some pretty
funny moments like the scene where you're forced to become a gladiator. The announcer
of the competition calls you a "loser with a stick" and the audience throws fruit at
you. It's pretty demoralizing and sad. Oh, you think you're so tough? Well too bad. We're
gonna throw fruit at you and see how cocky you are now.
Still, it's not all fun and games. Secret of Evermore is a challenging game! Maybe I'm
not the best at RPGs but I still can't be alone in this opinion. Some of the enemies
can knock you out in three hits! True, you can always level up and become stronger, but
that takes a lot of effort. Level crunching is as slow as molasses.
And the bosses! Wow, these things are big and strong and powerful and mighty . . . and
you're just . some loser with a stick (as the stadium announcer would put it). The bosses
are huge and intimidating. They look so detailed that you could picture them being in an early
Nintendo 64 game. To beat these assholes, you need a lot of patience and caution. But,
once you find their weak points, they're not impossible. Just very, very frustrating.
Something that makes your adventure easier is the ability to charge up your weapons.
All right, I'll admit that I was stupid about this. I didn't figure out how to do this until
hours and hours into the game. Here's how it works: once you level up your weapon skill
to level 3, you can hold down the attack button and then unleash a special move. They take
forever to charge up but they are well worth the effort. They're freaking devastating!
Hurricane devastating! Tornado devastating! Well not quite. But still . . . they're pretty
cool.
The most confusing part of the game, for me, was the magic system. In this, it's called
Alchemy but it's the same idea. Instead of using Magic Points or some sort of meter,
you make spells by collecting ingredients. Each spell needs different parts to make.
For instance, every time I want to do a little fireball spell, I need to have 1 piece of
wax and 2 units of oil. This seems like an overly complicated way of pulling off magic.
Sure, some people will love the creativity that Evermore is doing, letting you piece
together your own ingredients, but I just don't enjoy it. It makes me reluctant to ever
use magic because I'll run out of ingredients so quickly. Oh well.
The graphics are really good in Secret of Evermore. The art style is a bit subdued and
gritty for an RPG but it still has bold colors once and a while. All the characters look
detailed, the animation is smooth, and the monsters look and act a little differently
from each other. The human enemies act like humans (they attack carefully in patterns)
and the monsters act stupid and aggressive -- like monsters.
They clearly packed a lot of data into a little Super Nintendo cartridge. There are tons of
different areas to explore, enemies to fight, and people to meet. There are four separate
eras in time that you come across: a prehistoric time, an ancient civilization time, a medieval
time, and a future time. This helps break up the monotony by giving you new enemies
and new challenges every time you warp to a new area.
The music and sound effects really help to immerse you into the setting. The battle sounds
are crisp and nice like when you kill a little spider and it goes "Squish!" So satisfying!
That should be my ringtone! "What's up?"
Now about the music. Instead of big melodies, Evermore uses a subtle little ambient soundtrack.
If you're in the jungle, you'll hear forest noises like little birds and other animals.
If you're in a crowded market, you can here a ton of voices. These sound effects sound
great, almost CD quality at times. Sadly, there aren't many memorable songs in the game.
One of the only tunes I can think of is the intro theme. I like that ominous piano sound!
Things to Make it Better:
-A simpler magic system. The alchemy style might have been ambitious but it ended up
being awkward. -Make the dungeons less confusing. I got lost
in the mazes a lot but that might just be because I have bad navigational skills.
-Make the level up system quicker. It took me a long time to be strong enough to kill
the bosses. -And finally, put a few more memorable songs
in the game. I know it was going for an atmospheric stye but it still could have used some catchy
music once and while to liven things up.'
In conclusion, Secret of Evermore is actually a very good game. Is it better than Secret
of Mana? That's a matter of opinion. I enjoyed Evermore more because of the funny dialogue
and the richer graphics but some people might prefer Mana since it has more playable characters
and a more traditional magic system. Still, no matter which one you like more, what's
important is that they're both solid, fun RPGs.
Secret of Evermore, my favorite of the two, scores an 8/10. So that's Secret of Evermore.
I hope you guys liked the review. And it's just nice to be back. So, to end this on a
positive note, let's relax with a cover song I did from Secret of Evermore.